IPBC Summary Notes For March 24, 2004
Chabot College
Institutional Budget and Planning Council
IPBC Summary Notes
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Present: Ron Taylor, Joe Kuwabara, Laurie O'Connor, Carolyn Arnold, Melinda
Matsuda, Gerald Shimada, Sally Jahnke, Kathleen Schaefer, Chet Rhoan,
Robert Curry, Catherine Powell, Rachel LePell (last 20 minutes) [MELINDA:
more?]
1. Approval of Feb 25th and March 10th Minutes
Melinda Matsuda called the meeting to order at 3:03. The Minutes for the
February 25th meeting and March 10th meeting had been sent by Email earlier.
The group approved them.
2. Assessing progress this year: 2003-04 Priority Objectives/Activities
Carolyn Arnold thanked all the theme leaders who updated the status of the
2003-04 objectives/activities in their theme. She reported that when she entered
the status updates in the Strategic Planning Grid 2003-06, it came to 17 pages,
which she was reluctant to print or send out, because it was not easy to read,
and a waste of paper. She proposed taking the objectives/activities and status
statements out of the grid and listing them in a simple Word document and
sending them out for comment. The eventual goal will be to send it out to the
college to acknowledge to ourselves and to the college how much was
accomplished this year. This idea was approved.
3. Report on Institutional Research Priorities
Carolyn Arnold passed out a one-page summary of minutes from the Institutional
Research Subcommittee, which meets about once a semester to provide the Institutional
Research Office a sounding board about research issues and setting priorities for the
office. She drew attention to the item about the decision rules for prioritizing research
requests, which were approved by the subcommittee. The highest priorities are those that
1) are college-wide priorities, as defined by the strategic plan or other imperatives such as
PFE-funded projects or Enrollment management or 2) will be used for a decision or
action by a college, division, discipline, or program. In addition, requests need to have a
specific deadline, and are prioritized by deadline. The lowest priority requests are those
that are just “of interest” to a particular individual or department. Ron Taylor pointed out
that most PFE-funded and Enrollment management requests should theoretically be
within the strategic plan, and Carolyn agreed, and did in fact consider those requests to be
within the plan. Catherine Powell asked if the suggested Research Request form was
devised. Carolyn said no because she does not think it would save time, which was the
purpose of the suggestion. Most research requests had to be talked through, so she felt a
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IPBC Summary Notes For March 24, 2004
form would be more off-putting than helpful, and that the information about priorities
could be transmitted verbally.
4. Review process for evaluating progress on PFE-funded activities
As decided at last meeting, all 20 PFE-funded projects have been asked to turn
in a progress report by Monday, April 12th. An Email was sent out by Carolyn
Arnold on March 11th to all project leaders with the questions agreed upon at the
last meeting. These reports will be reviewed by IPBC at the April 14th meeting.
In order to make it possible for IPBC members to read the reports by April 14th,
she suggested asking project leaders to send their reports electronically if
possible, and that we would accept them early if ready! This idea was approved
and she will send out an Email. In order to expedite the process of reviewing the
reports and discussing them at the April 14th meeting, she suggested creating a
grid that IPBC members could use when reviewing the reports. The group
discussed what would be on this grid, and settled on a simple status form with
the following check-off categories: Completed/In progress(completing
objectives)/In progress(not completing objectives)/Delayed start – not much
progress yet/Not started/ Have questions and/or may need our support.
Members can check any categories that fit, and we will use them as a starting
point to discuss each project. With 90 minutes of the April 14th meeting allocated
for this process, that works out to 4.5 minutes per project!
A discussion ensued about how will we decide which of these projects should be
institutionalized, since we are asking projects to answer that question. It was
decided that the review on April 14th is just to determine progress, and that the
institutionalization discussion is part of overall planning for next year and beyond.
Concern was expressed that if we want to support these projects in the future
(with or without funds) we may need to start considering this earlier. The group
decided to have that discussion in May, and to keep it as an ongoing agenda
item to be discussed when projects are completed.
5. Planning for next year
Melinda Matsuda distributed the planning timetable that had been discussed in
February. She and Carolyn pointed out that we were still catching up to the
annual planning cycle, and that in a usual year, we would have be planned the
following year (2004-05) last Fall (2003). Instead, we are working on the 2004-05
priority Objectives and Activities now. In addition, they noted that this spring’s
schedule changed. The community data collection project could not be done this
Spring, and may be moved to the Fall, and the IPBC retreat about the college
vision/mission was not needed since we are doing that project differently.
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IPBC Summary Notes For March 24, 2004
5. Planning for next year (continued)
a. 2004-05 Priority Objectives/Activities
Carolyn Arnold distributed the list of nineteen activities that had been rated as the
top priorities for 2004-05, ordered by Theme and Objective. The list was revised
from last meeting to include all the PFE-funded activities that are going to take
place next year and that were not already on the list. She pointed out that all of
the PFE-funded activities fit under the priority objectives/activities, so they did not
force the addition of any objectives to the list. The group approved this list to
bring to College Council on April 2nd for review.
Sometime after that, this
complete list will be sent out to the college at large, to inform them of the 2004-05
strategic planning priorities for 2004-05. Note that action plans still need to be
written for many of these activities, and this will be discussed and coordinated in
the next 2 months.
b. Report on High level themes of 2004-05 Priority Objectives
Kathleen Schaefer presented the results of the group assigned to develop a short
list that expresses the major priority themes that could be used to communicate
more succinctly both within and outside of the college. Kathleen Schaefer,
Rachel LePell, and Laurie O’Connor came up with two versions, with some input
from Carolyn Arnold. The group discussed the versions and realized that it was
hard to develop a list that was for both the college community and the community
outside the college. The group mostly liked the first category, of Becoming a
Learning Centered Institution and its accompanying bullets. Suggestions ranged
from the need for more specificity to more abstractions, to simpler statements, to
the fear of using new phrases, like “Learning-centered Institution.” After a good
discussion about how to best introduce the new concepts of LCI and SLOs,
Kathleen and the group agreed to go back and try for 5 major points that could
be used for the internal college community. Afterwards, we would work on one
for the outside community.
c. Report on Mission/Vision/ Values/Student Learning Goals workgroup
Carolyn Arnold provided the minutes of the latest meeting of this workgroup. She
reported that an Email asking for input on the Vision, Mission, and Values had
been sent to the college community last week, with a deadline of march 29th. It
was decided to address all three areas in one request for input. The workgroup
will use that input to come up with very preliminary first drafts to present to IPBC
and other councils and senates. It is expected that the drafts will generate more
input than the original input request, which is the point of them. The question
today was whether IPBC needed to see these first drafts and maybe modify them
before they went to the rest of the college. It was decided that yes—the
workgroup would send it to IPBC members before Spring Break, and that we
would discuss it briefly at the April 14th meeting, and input would be taken into
account before disseminating it to the college. The group hopes to complete
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IPBC Summary Notes For March 24, 2004
final drafts by the end of the semester, so that the college can turn to the more
interesting task, that of defining college-wide student learning goals/outcomes.
That is the project that we hope can be started at Fall Convocation and Flex
Days.
5. Planning for next year (continued)
d. Report on March 12th workshop on Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)
IPBC funded 20 people to attend this workshop, so Carolyn Arnold reported on
two follow-up meetings she had held, where the 20 Chabot staff shared what
they had gained and how the information could be used at Chabot. The following
people who had attended spoke at this meeting of how valuable the experience
was – Laurie O’Connor, Kathleen Schaefer, Denise Noldon, Gerald Shimada,
Ron Taylor, and Carolyn Arnold. In addition, Sally Jahnke shared her
experiences from the same workshop on Nov 7th. Main points included the value
of working student learning outcomes with people from different disciplines,
norming grading/evaluation practices within disciplines, and how the process of
developing and thinking about how to measure SLOs was valuable for faculty in
both academic and student services. In addition, the group felt strongly that the
administration needed to strongly commit to and support this effort in order for
people to invest time in this one new thing.
The follow-up group wanted to keep meeting to keep the discussion going. They
represent a core of people who see the potential for using SLOs at Chabot, and
who would like to help make it happen. We then discussed the best way to
introduce SLOs to the college at large without causing a negative reaction.
Kathleen Schaefer related that at the workshop her Chabot group suggested that
it be assumed that faculty already know about and are concerned about student
learning outcomes, and that they be asked to contribute their expertise to
address this institution-wide goal of becoming a Learning-Centered Institution. It
was suggested that Fall Convocation and Flex days be used for an introduction
of college-wide Learning goals, and SLOs, if it could be done in a way that was
positive. Ron Taylor and Carolyn Arnold also reminded the group that Cindy
Hicks is forming a faculty group to work on the issue of becoming a LearningCentered College. It was suggested that perhaps the groups could be combined,
and that the work of both groups, as well as Staff Development planning about
Flex Days, could be coordinated and communicated through IPBC.
e. Update on Title III proposal planning
Rachel LePell gave a quick update on Title III proposal planning. The core
writing team has come up with a draft problem statement and a three-pronged
solution/set of activities for the proposal. The proposed set of activities are based
in the strategic plan priorities of educating the college about SLOs and becoming
a learning centered college, and the writing team wants to get feedback from the
college by bringing it to divisions. It was suggested that they also attend the
college councils and senates. The input will then be brought back to IPBC for the
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IPBC Summary Notes For March 24, 2004
next draft. IPBC members expressed strong support and appreciation for the
draft proposal ideas, since the team met the mandate of conceptualizing Title III
as a way to fund major activities in the strategic plan.
6. Report from Facilities committee
Rachel LePell had attended the Facilities committee, which is gearing up to plan
the bond construction projects. She pointed out that this was an important
moment of change for our college both architecturally and in how we teach and
learn together. It is an important opportunity to plan new buildings based on the
new thinking about teaching and learning and becoming a learning-centered
college, and she encouraged a strong link between IPBC and this committee.
IPBC members on that committee include herself (although she may not be able
to continue), Bob Curry and Sally Jahnke. IPBC members asked this group to
make sure to keep IPBC informed of the work of this committee and visa versa,
in order to get our planning visions into the discussions about the new buildings,
and they said they would.
Respectfully submitted by Carolyn Arnold and edited by Melinda Matsuda.
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